


For Sale: Grub Shoes, Never Worn.

by empty_battlefield



Series: A Slice of Sadstuck [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Babies, Child Death, Children, Dead Karkat, Death, Death from Old Age, Earth C (Homestuck), Everyone Is Gay, Everyone is Dead, F/F, Growing Old Together, Grubs (Homestuck), Hopeful Ending, Not Sadstuck, Old Age, Old Married Couple, Older Characters, Original Character(s), Other, POV Kanaya Maryam, POV Rose Lalonde, Past Character Death, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Red Romance, Sadstuck, ernest hemingway - Freeform, mutant red blood, six word novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-24 22:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9789041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empty_battlefield/pseuds/empty_battlefield
Summary: Darling Kanaya, you were meant to be a mother.On Earth C, Rose's wife Kanaya is earnest to raise a rare, candy-blooded grub that is the spitting image of her late friend, Karkat Vantas.But some things are just not meant to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/266162) by Ernest Hemingway. 



> Quick Notes:  
> Kanaya and Rose's great great great great troll granddaughter is the person named Devica. I couldn't keep referring to her as "she" so she had to have a name.
> 
> ** Edit: 40 KUDOS!!! I never thought this would happen! As a thank you present, I drew the image that is featured in this story. thank you all for the comments, kudos and bookmarks ;) Love you all. **

ROSE'S JOURNAL. EARTH C, YEAR 43.

Darling Kanaya, you were meant to be a mother.

Perhaps not myself, though. I had been prone to senseless drinking in my youth, a trait I inherited from my own mother. And although in an alternate universe Roxy had looked up to me as a parental figure— I for a long time did not feel myself prepared to raise a child.

Kanaya was prepared. She and Karkat began breeding grubs right away, tucked away in the caverns they had fashioned into their workplace. She was the one who insisted we raise children.

Karkat died at the tender age of 28. Because of his unique genetic situation, no one really knew how long he would live—but he got sick unexpectedly and passed away even before any of us humans did.

Kanaya did not take this well. She spent more and more time tucked away in the caverns. At first I assumed it was to make up for the work her partner in crime used to do. But she was playing host to an obsession, and it wasn’t long before the older children and I sensed it. 

Kanaya eventually confessed to me that she'd been trying everything in the jade-blood book to coax the mother grub into bearing a candy blooded troll. Karkat had pailed many times, and his genetics would definitely succeed him. But as my wife explained to me, his genes were evasively recessive and didn't showcase themselves often. Scarcely did I ever see a pointy toothed overbite—on occasion a pair of nubby horns. 

Never candy red blood. This discouraged Kanaya. 

We were nearly 40 years old at this time, and Kanaya and I had already adopted and raised many human children and grubs by then—mostly Kanaya’s biological jade bloods—but other castes as well, those poor grubs without living parents. Brown bloods like Tavros, or ceruleans, like Vriska, Terezi, or Equius. 

By that time, Kanaya had pretty much given up hope on any descendant of Karkat. Many of our children thought their mother mad, since mutant troll blood was nothing more than a mere myth—especially to the really little ones who never got the chance to sit on Karkat's lap when he was alive. 

Kanaya came home from work one day breathless and giddy. "After all these sweeps," she kept exclaiming. It was hard to get her to sit down. Her jade blood lifespan prevented her from withering into ripe old age like me. "A candy blooded troll," she said, forgetting not to shake my frail shoulders, "after all these sweeps..." 

She brought me to him the next day, and she swore it looked just like him. She talked endlessly about adopting him into our family, making him one of our own.

I think Kanaya got many of the female jade bloods—her apprentices in the caverns—excited to bring home a little brother.

But "Karkat Junior," as she had affectionately taken to calling him, began failing in his trials the brooding caverns. Kanaya did not want to admit it, but the child was weak. I brought up the painful fact every time she brought me to see him—Kanaya only denied it. She insisted that she would be able to take care of him, despite his frailty. "This is Earth C, not Alternia, after all," she would tell me stubbornly. She did not want to realize Junior was failing for a reason—he was dying. I could see it. No matter how much Kanaya cared for him, that child would not live.

Kanaya would not accept that fact, until all the other grubs in Junior's cohort had completed their trials and were put up for adoption. 

Kanaya finally brought the baby home. Not to rear, but to pass away in comfort. We sat in the cozy living room we'd built for ourselves, in our shared house. 

Many of our daughters sat in the room beside their mother. On the couches, in chairs, little ones on the floor beside our feet. I invited Dave to sit in as well, and to my surprise—agreed instantly and kept his word. The old rocking chair beside the window was tacitly reserved for Kanaya, the chair beside her for me. If only we had known when we were making plans for our home to have made that little room bigger! Junior had attracted quite the crowd. Fourteen of our children gathered to ooh and aww over their grub brother. Pairs of violet eyes googled over Junior; slender greenish hands outstretched over his tiny body. Gosh, that baby was so tiny!

We made idle small talk amongst ourselves while Kanaya held Junior tight against her breast. Dave, myself and the older ones took turns holding him, but for the most part he stayed snuggled up in the loose fabric of Kanaya’s sleeves.

It became apparent that Junior's breathing was quite labored, and the chatter soon fell out of the air. Kanaya's face tensed behind locks of ebony hair in a way that meant she was trying not to cry in front of her children—I knew this from years of living with her. I put my hand on her knee as a comforting gesture, kindly reminding her that Junior would sense her anxiety during her final moments with the child. The room was completely void of sound as Karkat Junior huffed out his last tiny breath in his mother’s arms.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/153224031@N02/35849539140/in/datetaken/)

I remember it being chilling, in the minutes after. Kanaya brought herself to kiss his little cheek when I could not. 

Dave's expression appeared to be devoid of any feeling, but I know from experience how much his shades really do hide. 

I was the one to coffin the body. Dave helped me dig a rather deep hole, and bury the box in the ground. And that was the end of it. 

The weeks following were the worst. Undoubtedly poor Kanaya blamed herself. That perhaps—if she had only fed him more, kept him shielded from her dim desk light, given him more love, love, love—then Junior would have flourished.

"Kanaya, dear, you have to know that it was never a failure on your part." I don't remember how many times I repeated to her those words. "The boy's genetics failed him, not you."

I don't say those words as a comfort, but as a fact that remains. I've read about mutant bloods from the few Alternian history books we've salvaged, and so has she. She knew better than I that mutant bloods are a rare occurrence. It is even rarer that they survive infancy—the genes they inherit as a package with their bright red blood are almost always deleterious. In fact, Karkat living to be as old as he did—to put it in the words of a clown that shall not be named—was a miracle.

And she knew this. But quite often in the beginning, and sometimes even now, she’d mourn to me, “But he was meant to be ours.”

In the months and years following she began to accept it. We continued to adopt and raise grubs and babies, as did our eldest children. I have never again seen another red-shelled grub. I suppose that brings this entry to a close, since that's all I have to say on the matter.

\--Rose Lalonde.  
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EARTH C, SWEEP 121.4

I Might As Well Make Clear That It Has Been A Long Time Since My Rose Has Passed On  
It Has Been Painful For Me To Have Outlived Her By So Many Sweeps  
However I Know That It Wont Be Long Now Until I Join Her  
Wherever She Is  
Ive Been Avidly Reading Her Old Journals Until That Time Comes Which Should Be Quite Soon  
Gog How Many Journals This Woman Had  
Id Be Lying Though If I Said They Havent Been Keeping Me Company  
I Came Across This Entry A While Ago And Figured I Might As Well Write The End To It  
Since Dear Rose Never Lived To See The Day  
But A Descendant Of Karkats Did In Fact Resurface

It Wasnt Too Long Ago Actually  
Rose Was Correct In That I Had Given Up On The Mother Grub Bearing Another Mutant Blood  
She Was Also Right In That Our Children Refused To Believe That A Red Blooded Troll Was More Than A Myth  
I Suppose All Of Us Were Startled When Word Got Around The Old Brooding Caverns That The Mother Grub Bore A Candy Blooded Mutant  
I Had Long Since Retired From There By That Time  
And I Did Not Believe It When Our Great Great Great Great Granddaughters Told Me  
A Part Of Me Did Not Want To Believe It Rose  
Because I Was Afraid Of Being Hurt Again  
I Remained Stubborn Until I Saw It With My Own Eyes  
It Was Our Dear Devica Who Brought Him Home For Me To See  
You Never Got To Meet Her Rose  
Darling Girl  
But Devica Brought The Child To Our Hive  
I Warned Her Not To Become Too Attached For Her Own Sake  
She Had Heard Juniors Story From Me Near A Hundred Times  
But She Only Smiled  
She Told Me Not To Worry  
She Told Me That He Had Already Conquered His Trials  
With Flying Colors As You Used To Say  
I Knew She Wasnt Lying To Me  
I Know A Healthy Grub When I See One And That Rambunctious Little Critter Was Crawling All Over Her :)  
Devica Said That He Was Going To Be Just Fine  
That She And Her Matesprit Were Planning To Take Him To Their Hive In A Week And Raise Him As Their Own  
It Was Just Like We Taught Her To Rose  
Our Great Great Great Great Great Great Grandson  
I Wanted To Hold Him Badly  
And It Was Like Devica Knew What Was In My Thinkpan  
She Placed Him In My Arms  
I Nearly Cried  
He Was Beautiful  
Healthy  
And Thriving  
And Even In My Advanced Age My Memory Could Not Fail Me  
He Looked So Much Like Karkat  
A Face I Could Never In A Million Sweeps Forget  
I So Wish That You And Dave Could Have Seen Him

That Grub Is In Good Hands Rose  
And Junior Is As Well  
Yours  
You Always Thought Yourself An Inferior Mother  
And You Were Always Wrong  
I Will Talk More With You Soon

~Kanaya Maryam

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all comments on this story are greatly appreciated!


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